I wish this was endless comedy, but it's not - I used to post a lot, but hardly anymore because I don't have the energy. It was a sort of journal/diary of a bloke trying to get on with his life after having a massive stroke without warning on Christmas day 2005 (age 28). dompardey(@)gmail(.)com. I spend more time on fbook these days although the agressive political ranting is a bit much. I don't bring up that sort of thing unless absolutely necessary. I'm just trying to meet new local friends

10 Aug 2015

Post 404: Really?!

Awful training for Monday. Done. Just got into a hideous row about politics on facec*nt that I really don’t want to be in, so better post this.
Really? Is a question I often find myself asking, particularly of myself. I promised myself (it’s all about me again, sigh), when I restarted this that it wouldn’t become some sh*tty review of what I happened to be watching but that’s bound to happen, in fact read on, it will! I also buy into the theory that saying nothing makes you the bigger man. Well big only refers to my height these days obviously. Being the bigger man and staying silent is another thing to add to my list of things (A long list). Until the day when I actually get a medication that does something (oh dear, that’s another complaint)
Someone has already told me how writing a post complaining about complaining, full of complaints doesn’t make any sense, difficult to argue with that, perhaps I should just f*ck this off?!
It then occurred to me that autobiographical writing is two things, it’s either fact reporting, which can often be interpreted as bragging, and a running commentary of everything else. That running commentary is often interpreted as a stream of complaints wishing things had been better. So without a story involving superheroes, spacemen, zombies, demons etc, it’s not hard to see why I called it a day on this after Post 402. You see, that’s another complaint.
I said before that I was more of a book person but when your eyesight and concentration are f*cked then TV series are what you’re left with. My imagination is now pretty sh*t. Obviously, I devoured the fifth season of ‘Game of C*nts’, where it’s true ‘everyone fights to sit on the world’s most uncomfortable chair’ or as my friend Ched said ‘f*cking dragons’ –despite that mixed appraisal, most workawayer’s manage to watch it all – with or without me. It is compelling stuff. Even more so because everyone is so unpleasant.
The Soprano’s is long gone, despite it’s brilliance as is the brutal horribleness of Boardwalk Empire or ‘just like Bugsy Malone except using real bullets instead of splurge guns’ [according to Frenchy]. I have now moved on to Mad Men which I have been pretty shocked by despite it not having subject-matter that would ordinarily be considered shocking. I am not the best politically correct feminist in the world but People in the 60s were f*cked. For most of the people reading this, surviving the 80s was a miracle, and that was mostly the haircuts, nevermind being bullied at school.
In today’s technology driven world, being bullied is about having your feelings hurt when someone disagrees with you online. We consider broadband going down a breach of our basic human rights, I know I do, but I then get this damnable sense of perspective.
I watch a lot of these HBO shows and the more I watch them I think that dramatising something awful is the formula that 90% of the time works everytime. The Soprano’s and Boardwalk Empire, who knew that organised Crime was so grim? Um, everyone!
Mad Men seems to be about alcohol addiction, sex addiction (without the ‘Bewbs’ HBO resorts to (effectively in my opinion)) and feeling in total control just as ‘talking therapy’ came along as the 60s way of attacking depression (in 30/40 something men, depression and fatigue were seen as weakness), that and the unbelievable lack of rights or any life afforded to women, minorities, poor people, fat people, ugly people, the disabled, the mentally ill etc. It is pretty wrong. I’m sure Ayn Rand would say it all made sense. Caveat – I used to believe Objectivism made sense
There seems to be one antidote to depression, love – yes that’s right, love. Romantic love, or the type a parent has for a child. Everything else is just a finger in the dyke.
The reason people watch Mad Men, is to be shocked by the next moral outrage, I know it’s a dramatisation but you can’t believe that it was actually like that! People in Mad Men are horrible sociopaths. Donald Draper may look like a Matinee Idol but he is an awful Human. The good bits are how The World reacts to pivotal events for humanity, the moon landing, the Cuban Missile Crisis, JFK’s assassination.
It is also an abject lesson about how badly people come across if they lie or pretend to care about stuff just to impress other people which seems to be a big feature of today’s social media driven world. If you tell anyone, I MEAN ANYONE that they’re arguing about something they don’t really believe in or can’t logically prove, watch them go mental, or better still accuse you of bullying.
Here’s a list someone posted about living in London that made me laugh along with a couple of stereotype maps. I hope to always find something like this because typing is a killer. The list was obviously compiled by a female hipster but it applies to a lot of people. At least being in a wheelchair doesn’t mean contending with a lot of this shit anymore ( I have bigger problems to be sarcastic about):
1. You’ll never get that excited about getting paid because you know that a couple of days later half of that’s gonna fly straight back out again and into your landlord’s bank account. Awesome.
2. Citymapper will become the most important app on your phone and when you visit cities that don’t have it you’ll be, like, HOW DO I GET AROUND I AM LOST HELP.
3. You’ll basically do anything to avoid changing at Bank. Sure, I *could* change at Bank and be there on time but yeah, nah, I’ll take the long way round ta.
4. Nothing is more soul-destroying than looking for a room to rent. NOTHING. Not even the sob-fest that is watching the Notebook comes close to how your heart feels when you’ve just gone to look at yet another hell-hole with a £800pcm price tag.
5. Blowing black snot out of your nose doesn’t mean you’re dying. It just means you’ve been breathing in pollution all day and, instead of travelling straight into your lungs, some of it got stuck in your nose! HURRAH.
6. Getting a black cab home after a night out only really happens in movies, or if you’re super rich which, as we’ve already discussed, you’re not. Night bus it is then.
7. The ONLY place on Brick Lane to get a bagel from is Beigel Bake. I *know* the queue’s shorter in the other bagel shop but THIS ONE IS THE BEST, ALRIGHT??
8. People will immediately judge you based on where you live in London. And you’ll start doing it too.
9. Dating in London is much, much harder than you thought it would be. I mean, there’s millions of people here, surely ONE of them wants to spend a couple of nights a week watching Netflix with me and take me out to brunch once in a while? No? Oh, OK cool.
10. Buses will terminate unexpectedly and at some point you’ll end up being dropped off in what feels like the middle of nowhere (but is probably just somewhere in South London LOL) and of course it will be raining and you’ll have left your brolly at home. FFS.
11. Your default mood will be tired but if anyone asks you how you are you’ll still be, like, ‘yeah fine how are you?’ #SoBritish
12. Going to the pub on a Monday night is totally acceptable. Urgh, you’ve had such a hard week already, best have a glass of wine to get over it.
13. In fact, going out on a weeknight is so much better than going out at the weekend. Saturday nights out are sooo 2008.
14. Your default walking speed will be fast and getting stuck behind someone strolling at a leisurely pace like they have all the time in the world will make your blood actually boil. GET OUT OF THE WAY I HAVE SOMEPLACE TO BE.
15. You’ll get used to going to sleep to the sound of sirens and drunk people shouting in the street. So much so that when you go visit your parents for the weekend you can’t get any shut-eye because it’s actually too damned quiet.
16. Your friends basically turn into your family and you’ll have no qualms about spending an hour on the tube to go have coffee with them.
17. That fantasy you had of being able to put a bit of your monthly salary into a savings account? Yeah, not gonna happen.
18. Your heels will gather dust in the corner of your room and probably just become a little playground for the mouse that comes to play in your flat at night.
19. You will go on holiday and when someone asks where you live you’ll feel a *little* bit smug when you say you live in London.
20. However long you live here, a train being delayed because of a person on the tracks will always make you feel a little bit sad, despite it probably making you late for something.
21. Your conversations will mostly revolve around how much rent you pay, where you live, who you live with, and which restaurant in Shoreditch does the best burger.
22. You’ll have all the best intentions when it comes to trying out that cool speakeasy bar or quirky pop-up restaurant you read about in Time Out but, 90% of the time, you’ll actually end up just going to the local pub.
23. You won’t actually buy anything at all the markets you go to but they sure do make good Instagram photos.
24. Sometimes the best way to appreciate London is to leave it for a weekend. City break in Amsterdam? Don’t mind if I do.
25. You’ll feel like you know the intimate life-details of the person who lives in the flat above you, despite the fact that you’ve never actually met. Errr, can you keep it down a bit, please?
26. You’ll get to the point when you don’t want to live in a flatshare anymore but also don’t wanna spend ALL your monthly pay cheque on your own place. Girl’s gotta eat, right?
27. City sunsets will give you a warm feeling in your belly and you’ll be all, like, awww London, you’re not so bad.
28. You’ll have such a strong love/hate relationship with it that sometimes you honestly don’t know whether you should pack your bag right now and leave or stay forever and ever.
29. Every now and then (usually after you’ve paid a visit to the pub) you’ll be walking home and the light will be just right and you’ll suddenly fall for London all over again and you’ll realise that, whatever happens, you did it. You moved to London and survived. And it feels pretty damned good.

That list twinged a few heart strings
I’m pretty sure hipsters actually don’t exist, at least how we imagine them, they’re just people with a keen sense of how ‘cool’ or ‘credible’ things are, particularly how much cooler they are than you. They will instantly judge how ‘cool’ almost anything is. Enough complaints. Every time I consider stopping this for good I see this face. FYI, it’s workawayer Katie looking like she’s losing patience.

1 comment:

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